Lupin watched him walk away and said, between his teeth:
"My freedom first. . . . And afterward, when I have given you back the letters, O Majesty, one little shake of the hand! Then we shall be quits! . . ."
CHAPTER XIII
THE SEVEN SCOUNDRELS
"Will you see this gentleman, ma'am?"
Dolores Kesselbach took the card from the footman and read:
"André Beauny. . . . No," she said, "I don't know him."
"The gentleman seems very anxious to see you, ma'am. He says that you are expecting him."
"Oh . . . possibly. . . . Yes, bring him here."
Since the events which had upset her life and pursued her with relentless animosity, Dolores, after staying at the Hôtel Bristol had taken up her abode in a quiet house in the Rue des Vignes, down at Passy. A pretty garden lay at the back of the house and was surrounded by other leafy gardens. On days when attacks more painful than usual did not keep her from morning till night behind the closed shutters of her bedroom, she made her servants carry her under the trees, where she lay stretched at full length, a victim to melancholy, incapable of fighting against her hard fate.